The Project

Sam Campbell’s Nature Books

You may have read Sam Campbell’s nature books, but you may not know that he also produced many films and delivered thousands of lectures across the nation.

What if you could take a step back in time and see one of Sam Campbell’s films and hear one of his lectures or go visit his island home? Here at TLD Productions, we hope to make it possible for you to soon be able to do just that.

Though his humor and his beliefs about nature live on through his books, his films have been unavailable to the public. For many years it was believed that Sam’s films had been lost or destroyed.

TLD Film and Audio Productions

Sam’s Films

Several years ago some of those films were discovered and are being transferred to digital media. TLD Productions is working with these films, as well as interviews and current footage, to produce a documentary film entitled Philosopher of the Forest: The Sam Campbell story.

The film will transport you to Sam’s island home, invite you to listen to interviews from people who visited Sam and Giny on their island, and take you touring on the Minnesota Boundary Waters he loved and wrote so much about.

As an early pioneer of the environmental movement, Sam Campbell believed that nature had many things to teach us about the God who created us. He spent his life sharing this belief with audiences across the United States.

From his summer home near Three Lakes, Wisconsin, Sam filmed and wrote about the many things he saw and felt from nature. From his winter home in Barrington, Illinois he shared these films widely around the greater Chicago area and across the nation. Sam narrated these silent films with his humor and philosophy, always pointing the viewer to God, the creator of all things!

It is our goal not only to share Sam’s story and philosophy with you, but also to fulfill a real need in American society, the need to spend time in nature, listening. It is through this quiet listening that peace can be restored to a troubled heart and the hustle and bustle of life can be quieted. Only in this way can deeper thought occur and that still, quiet Voice be heard.

Quotable

"My inclination, after years of observation, is never to charge anything to chance in nature. It is all cause and effect. Intelligence, often a higher order then what we call reasoning, guides the people of the forest."
A Tippy Canoe and Canada TooMy inclination

"One need never be lonely in the great outdoors. There is satisfying companionship to be found among forest folk when we are worthy."One need never be

"Fear is the screen that hides from our view the friendship native to the wild heart. Wildness is only a form of fear, for when kindness and patience have penetrated the veil, we see unmistakable evidence of the love in all forms of life."Fear is the screen

"A fireplace is the supreme part of a home, I wouldn't want it to be without one. But it has an appetite that knows no end!"A fireplace is the

"Animals are individuals to me, and I am glad I think of them not only as serving man with flesh and hide, but also as co-partners in the glorious revelation of the infinitude of life."Animals are individuals to

"There are few living things whose purpose in the great scheme cannot be clearly seen if we get rid of our fears and think wisely."
Tippy Canoe and Canada Too‚ pg. 71There are few living

"The enemies to our happiness are more in the nature of mistakes, errors, superstitions, fears — things that have no power or substance except that which we give them in ignorance."The enemies to our

"Love that is bestowed in compensation for some favor or blessings has selfishness mixed in!"Love that is bestowed

"Nature abhors the congregation of her creatures. She fights against the evils of our population. In the hearts of her children she plants an irresistible instinct for spreading, searching out new lands, seeking, ever seeking what lies just beyond the horizon."
Tippy Canoe and Canada Too‚ pg. 69Nature abhors the congregation

"Why don't we fight the thing that causes the trouble and not one another? Why don't we fight hatred and fear, selfishness, greed, all the things that destroy human happiness. Slightly modified, only removed who was talking and the between comments."
Seven Secrets of Somewhere Lake‚ pg. 95Why don't we fight